Freeing Anvi

Chapter Sixteen

"Look out!

"What?" I duck, just narrowly missing the large wooden pole that swings above me. "Be careful, please!"

"Sorry, Luna," a few sheepish men mutter as they walk past me. Over their shoulders they carry prickly long, brown cylindrical trunks and pause by the spot that I'm standing. They drop the trunks down and pull out the old wood that holds together the octagon pavilion. While some of the men pull the poles, another bunch puts the new ones in. They take out their saws and begin to clean the wood.

"This is certainly exciting." Bea returns with the ladder that I had asked her to fetch. She puts it up against the new pavilion side and holds the bottom as I climb up. "Finally we have another Luna in charge. There aren't many of them."

"I've heard," I say. "Toss the banner please."

Bea complies. "The last Luna we had died in the eighties. You'd be surprised how many men are born first."

"I heard somewhere that if a mother is stressed during her pregnancy, then the baby is most likely to be a female," another woman joins us. Her name eludes me momentarily, but then I remember it when I see the necklace around her neck. Amethyst.

"That I can understand," Bea says. "But knowing mates, they always try to make the pregnancy the least stressful moment possible."

"Then the baby comes and suddenly it's hell on earth," Amethyst adds with a chuckle. "I would know. That's how my mate was."

"Who's your mate?" I ask as I crawl along the top of the pavilion's skeleton. I'm on my hands and knees like a tiger, but gripping to the post like a koala in my attempt to string the banner on properly.

"I don't think that you both have met before," Amethyst says. "But her name's Jade."

"Jade?" What is it with all of these jewelry names? I think. "It's a nice name, but no, I don't think that I've met her yet."

"You're bound to meet her soon, Luna," Amethyst gushes. "She works in the customs department in the human part of the world."

"Really?" Bea expresses my surprise before I can. "Jackson allowed it?"

"He's been trying to open communication with the humans." Amethyst sighs. "But I'm sure you can imagine that they are quite reluctant to do the same with us."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because to them, we are nothing more than monsters," Bea scowls. "Even to our own kind, they see us as monsters. Right, Adonis?"

Adonis, who had been passing quietly behind Amethyst and trying to be discreet, stops and shrugs. "I call it like I see it," he says. "We're monsters, through and through. They can't change who we are."

"Jackson isn't trying to change us," Amethyst snaps. "He's trying to open us to the world that we've rejected for so long."

"The humans have rejected us," Adonis says. His eyebrows draw together. "If that's what they want, then I'm fine with it. It's my brother who keeps insisting."

"They're not all bad," I mutter. "They're just scared, rightfully, considering our history with them."

"So, we killed a few and kidnapped some, big deal?" Adonis scoffs. "That was ages ago. Humans just can't let go of the past, Anvi. They call us savages, but we don't kill our own kind mindlessly."

"Coming from you, that's amusing," Bea snaps. "Now leave us and go do your own thing, Adonis. We don't care what it is."

"Hey, you called me here to talk," Adonis says and begins to walk away. "I didn't butt into your conversation."